Greg Burgas, one of the first bloggers I knew (but haven’t met) was musing about The Goldblum Effect, which he invented. It is “when you’re convinced something exists and no one else remembers it… but you’re totally right.”
Greg notes, “But these days, if you believe you saw or read something and no one else does, you can probably find it on the internet.” Unless you can’t.
Eddie, another one of my long-time blogger buddies, was having one of those same feelings, but without resolution:
“I have memories of being about fourth or fifth grade and getting an LP for Christmas–one of those educational types–that was all original songs for kids about American history. I can still remember snippets of the songs. The one about the stock market crash in 1929 had a chanted refrain (“Stocks are going up! Going up!”) that kept building and building until the crash happens. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the album or who put it out. Of course, my copy is long, long gone.
“It’s one of those things I would love to find one day at a thrift, if only to prove to myself that I am not hallucinating and that the opening song really, inexplicably, was……American Pie! Surely, I cannot be misremembering something as bizarre at that. Surely.”
First, I looked for compilations with American Pie. There are several, including this one, but the other tunes are pop songs.
Then I tried to ascertain the other recording. Briefly I thought it might be Funky President by James Brown, which has a reference to the stock market going up.
But I think the song is most likely Society Bear, or That Society Bear, by Irving Berlin, although it’s actually from 1912!
As for the compilation, though, I’m afraid I just don’t know. Any thoughts?
I related to this topic because I know a lot of things, but I don’t always know HOW I know them, and occasionally, I am trying to prove that I’m not just making stuff up can prove elusive.
Good luck, Eddie!
